Wine of the week: the finest village Chablis I have ever tasted

published 25 January 2019

2017 Chablis, Domaine Adhmar et Francis Boudin, Burgundy, France£18.95, reduced to £16.95 by the case, Lea & Sandeman, 020-7244 0522, LeaAndSandeman.co.uk

I tasted 1,272 Burgundies inthe second week of Januarywhile compiling my 2017 Burgundy En Primeur Report. Only 167 of these gained myhard-earned accreditation,"QP". Qualit prix or, to give it its full expression "rapport qualit prix", is the French term for "value", but it means much more than this.

Great value wines are often thought of as cheapies that over-deliver, but I use these two capital letters to denote wines that demonstrate extraordinary value for money, no matter how steep the price tag may be.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

The 2017 vintage was a generous one and only the Chablis region suffered from lower yields on account of frost (again). It is good news that Burgundians finally have some wine to sell after two very short harvests. The wines are slender, calm, bright and evocative, and the best examples have good mid-palates and nice fruit ripeness, whereas the others seem just a little too mean and edgy, with tart acidity and sour tannins.

This week, I have found a QP wine which is already bottled and on our shelves so you can buy it, drink it, and in one sip understand the shape and size of the best wines from the 2017 vintage. Boudin's Chablis is stunning value and it is the finest village Chablis I have tasted. Over to you

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.